Why adding water to your whisky really does make it taste better

IT is an age-old debate among those partial to a wee dram – should you add water to your whisky?

Now scientists claim the spirit does taste better diluted, because adding water brings flavour compounds to the surface.

The Swedish team said the alcohol in the drink interacts with guaiacol, a substance that forms when barley is dried over a peat fire and gives whisky its smoky taste.

Professor Bjorn Karlsson, a chemist at Linnaeus University in Kalmar, and colleagues found the alcohol drives guaiacol molecules to the middle of the glass. But adding water helps spread out the parti- cles and wafts more to the surface. In computer simulations, they found there was more guaiacol at the top when the alcohol level was less than 45 per cent.

Prof Karlsson, who published the findings in the journal Scientific Reports, said how much water to add is a matter of personal taste but warned there is a ‘fine balance’ and too much ‘wastes’ the whisky.

The Scotch Whisky Association said diluting could also help by stopping the alcohol from ‘masking more subtle aromas’.